When forms come to life: collaborating to build a world
Tuesday 08 Sep 2026 from 6pm to 7pm
Free on booking
Talk in english
Through Life of Forms, art and design respond to one another, influence each other, and blur their boundaries.
The curators explore this interplay between disciplines, the connections that emerge between works from the Lafayette Anticipations Collection and creations from AlUla’s design programs, and how these objects continue to evolve according to their uses, contexts, and the perspectives they inspire.
The exhibition’s title echoes the book by art historian Henri Focillon, Life of Forms (1934), in which he argues that art and architecture “collaborate in the creation of a world.” On the occasion of this event, Clément Delépine, director of Lafayette Anticipations and co-curator of the exhibition, Arnaud Morand, Head of Arts and Creative Industries at AfalUla and co-curator of the exhibition, as well as Ali Alghazzawi, Head of the Artist-in-Residence Program at the Royal Commission for AlUla (RCU) and associate curator, discuss the criteria that guided the dialogue between works from AlUla’s residency programs and pieces from the Lafayette Anticipations Collection — Moulin Family Endowment Fund.
They are joined by designers Ori Orisun Merhav and Mehdi Kebaier (ALTIN Studio), both of whom are alumni of the AlUla 2025 design residency program, to discuss how works such as Harrat by Studio ThusThat, Palm Chronicles by ALTIN, and Die Bibliothek I by Katinka Bock conceive of matter as a repertoire of gestures and sedimented histories. Together, they explore the connections between contemporary art and design, viewed here as two sister disciplines.
Talk moderated by Formae.
With a master's degree in social sciences from the University of Lausanne (2009), he began his career at the Swiss Institute in New York, where he worked from 2010 to 2015. He then joined the Bortolami gallery as director in 2015.
Returning to Paris, he co-directed the independent Paris Internationale fair from 2016 to 2021, which quickly carved out a unique place in the art world by promoting young galleries and emerging artistic practices.
From 2022 to 2025, he will head Art Basel Paris, where he has developed an ambitious and unifying approach and oversees cultural programming in collaboration with Parisian public and private institutions.
Since 2020, he has also been Art Editor at large for Novembre, an interdisciplinary platform exploring new aesthetics, innovative styles and emerging cultural trends.